Naomi Pomeroy

Chef-owner, Beast
Portland, Oregon

To say that chef Naomi Pomeroy has strong opinions about food

would be a profound understatement.

On a bright day in December, we’re in the kitchen of her hugely

popular Portland restaurant, Beast, and Pomeroy is prepping

onions for the French onion soup she’ll be serving later that night

to her forty-eight dinner guests. In the time we spend together, she

spends most of it prepping these onions: there’s a giant plastic

crate full of them. She needs that many onions because they’ll

cook down into a golden, concentrated mass to which she’ll add

her wildly intense meat stock. She’ll season it with Tabasco and

thirty-year-aged balsamic vinegar, and it will be the best French

onion soup I’ve ever had, but right now she’s peeling off onion

skin and talking to me about the weather.

“Weather is a big influence on what I cook,” she tells me. “On a

rainy day, I like comfort foods, something meaty. On a hot day, I

like lighter foods. I don’t want to cook inside, so I’ll grill.”

The discussion about food and weather leads to a conversation

about balancing a menu. “When you plan a menu, you have to

think start to finish. You don’t serve a creamy pork entrée and

then serve chocolate for dessert.”